Amber Hawk Swanson (b. 1980) is a New York-based artist born in Davenport, Iowa. Her work deals with how the psychological debt of love animates us in a social-emotional economy.
Recent exhibitions and screenings include Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France); Denny Gallery (New York, NY); Momenta Art (Brooklyn, NY); and Locust Projects (solo, Miami, FL). Hawk Swanson is currently at work on a November 2017 solo exhibition & performative lecture in Belfast, UK
Hawk Swanson’s seminars and residencies include the New Museum Seminar, (Temporary) Collections of Ideas: Speculation (New York, NY); a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Workspace Residency (New York, NY); an LMCC Process Space Residency (New York, NY); as well as residencies at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY); MacDowell (Peterborough, NH); Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME); the Sharpe-Walentas Space Program (Brooklyn, NY); Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL); Mana Contemporary BSMT Residency (Jersey City, NJ); and G-CADD (Granite City, IL) in partnership with Paul Artspace (Florissant, MO). In Summer 2018, Hawk Swanson will be a Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Artist in Residence.
Recent scholarly writing on her work has been published in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies (2015 & 2012) and Theatre Drama Review (TDR, 2012). Hawk Swanson's work has additionally been profiled and reviewed in the Guardian (2014), Chicago Tribune (2011), and Associated Press (2007).
Recent visiting artist lecture appointments include Columbia University; New York University's Tisch School of Arts; Eugene Lang College; The New School; Hunter College, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT); and Center for the Humanities, The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center (all New York, NY). She has additionally lectured at Yale University (New Haven, CT); McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada); Maine College of Art (MECA, Portland, ME); Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA, Baltimore, MD); Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY); and East Carolina University (Greenville, NC). In October 2017 she will speak about "DOLLY" as part of the "Hold It Better, Release It Carefully: Object Lessons on Water and Belonging" panel at the International Sculpture Conference (Kansas City, MO).
Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL).
Hawk Swanson holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Studio Arts, 2006) and is a recipient of a 2015 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Artist Community Engagement Grant and a 2014 Franklin Furnace Fund Grant. She currently teaches in the Sculpture Departments of Rhode Island School of Design, RISD (Providence, RI) and Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU (Richmond, VA).
Portrait by Christa Holka.